Once upon a time, seventy-odd years ago, someone built a house. Over the decades it has received additions and improvements, but it’s difficult to tell exactly what’s been added. A case in point, the living room fireplace.
The fireplace is made of fieldstone. At some point someone shoved a two-door Fisher cast iron stove into the firebox. There’s no liner in the chimney, so the smoke came out of the stoves damper and went up a basically empty box. It was obviously used to heat the house (and another fireplace was built into the front bedroom addition), but somewhere along the line baseboard and electric wall heaters were installed. Who knows the last time it was used?
A friend bought the house in 2001. He disconnected the electric heaters because they cost so much to run. How did he do it? Did he cut the wires? Or did he just take out the fuses? I don’t know. He looked into getting the chimney repaired, which would have entailed installing a liner. It was only a couple hundred dollars more to install a propane wall heater instead, so he went that route. So since I bought the house from him in 2003 I’ve had a non-functional eyesore in the living room.
We’ve been designated an ‘Urban Growth Area’ (Ha!) so there’s a permanent outdoor burn ban. After last year’s wind storms I suddenly have a lot of firewood. Not to mention scrap lumber from home improvements. Last year also brought heavy snow and power outages. If the propane truck can’t get here and there’s no electricity, it can get pretty cold. (I’ve bought a 3kw (2.5 continuous) Honda generator, so that alleviates the electricity problem.) Time to fix the chimney.
The chimney sweep (from Haulin’ Ash – cute name) pulled the Fisher stove and cleaned everything up. He said I could just use it as-is, but the stove won’t last long. I could have him install a new liner, but it wouldn’t fit the new stove when the time comes. And there’s a danger of a chimney fire. Or I could install a brand new, efficient cast iron stove.
I’ve elected to buy a new stove. It’s a Napoleon EPA insert with a glass front and two 200 cfm blowers. Someone, somewhere along the line, removed a corner of the fireplace. Or maybe it was built that way for sort of a ‘wrap-around’ effect. But this caused structural problems so they stacked bricks in the corner. They didn’t lay the bricks, with mortar and everything; they just stacked them. So Haulin’ Ash will replace the masonry there. There will be the new insulated liner of course, and the cracks in the chimney will be repaired and the chimney will be waterproofed.
A chimney mason came out last month. He said I should have the existing chimney repaired, as it would cost ten kilobucks to replace it – plus the fireplace insert, which would cost another kilobuck or two. The new cast-iron stove, which kind of looks like a fireplace since it has the glass front, will cost less than half of that and will include the new liner, spark arrestor, masonry repairs, waterproofing, and in-front-of-the-stove tile. I’ll be able to supplement the propane heater and portable radiator-style oil-filled heater, get rid of the wood that came down during the storms, protect the house somewhat from moisture, add value to my home, and improve the looks of my living room.
Work starts next week.
